


Love Till the End of Time

by Whreflections



Category: Backstreet Boys
Genre: Cousin Incest, Date Rape Drug/Roofies, F/M, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Infidelity, M/M, Minor Character Death, POV Brian, Sirens, Soul Bond, siren au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-12
Updated: 2015-04-12
Packaged: 2018-03-22 12:25:37
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,350
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3728869
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Whreflections/pseuds/Whreflections
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A long, long time ago, Brian was a fisherman whose ship crashed on a rocky coast.  He should have died when he cut his chest open on the rocks or he should have drowned in the water, but he's pulled onto the sand and saved from both by a man who changes his life forever.  </p><p>Basically, in which Brian is a siren who lives a long, long time finding the people he loves scattered all over the place.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Love Till the End of Time

**Author's Note:**

  * For [purpleyedemon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/purpleyedemon/gifts).



> ohmyGod this has been such a fantastically fun fic to work on but it's nearly 6 AM and I desperately need to sleep. SO better author's note probably coming tomorrow but for now just know this-
> 
> [EDIT- I moved the notes on story warnings to the end, for those who don't want any clue about what's coming. If anything on that list of warnings makes you pause and wonder if you want to read this, go down to the end notes and check that list out; I tried to be sure and cover everything I thought might upset people.] 
> 
> Most importantly, HAPPY BIRTHDAY KYRIE I LOVE YOU AND I HOPE YOU ENJOY THIS!! :D <3

_No siren did ever so charm the ear of the listener as the listening ear has charmed the soul of the siren._

_\- Henry Taylor_

 

 **_rise and live again_**  

 

Later, he will remember that his thoughts in the water were not that important.  If he’d had more time maybe they would have been, maybe he’d have swirled limp in the current and considered how life comes from the sea and ends in it, bloody at either end.  Maybe he’d have prayed.  It’s nice to think, though deep down he feels sure a few more breaths given wouldn’t have made much difference in the end.  Eloquence comes with reflection; life is immediate, raw and dirty and sharp.  

He remembers pain in his chest, the blurry confusion at the thought that he hadn’t expected drowning to feel like this.  Even on the sand he has trouble placing the truth, the throbbing in his chest so deep and strange he can’t place it.  In his defense, it’s hard to know you’re bleeding when you’re wet everywhere, sand sticking to eyelids and fingers and too heavy cloth. 

For years, he tries to remember the jumble that follows.  For all the good it does him he might as well be squinting at a poorly planned mosaic and still he tries, long after he expects results, long after Alexis tells him to give up.  (Always the same way, always, laughter in his eyes as he curves his hand to fit the nape of Brian’s neck.  _The sea meant to have you, little one.  If she could not have your life, the memory of my theft must be hers to keep._ ) 

He remembers only strangely clear snatches, flashes of hands that felt curiously hot, disconnected snippets of song.  He remembers the kiss he pushed up on his elbows to take, blood pounding in his ears.  Alexis smiled against his mouth, murmured words for others Brian hadn’t seen.  _You see I told you, this one wants to live_. 

Of that day, the only strong memory he carries is waking up under the baking sun, blood dried brown on his chest around a wound knitted together while he slept into a thick scar over his heart. 

  

**_like a lion I will survive; will I; will I_ **

****

There’s something slightly freeing about being dead.  Freeing, and terrifying.  He can’t go home; they’d only run him out as a monster.  He has no responsibilities, no structure.  He’s not a fisherman anymore, though when he says as much to Alexis his hands fall to Brian’s hips and he pulls him in close, whispers next to his ear.  

“You and I are both fishermen, Brian.  It is only the prey that changes, not the spirit of the act.”  

He walks the beach alone for hours, watches the sunrise from the spit where he should have died and draws in the sand with his fingers.  When Jesus said _I will make you fishers of men_ , Brian doubts it was creatures like _him_ He had in mind. 

He learns the rules to this new life from Alexis and his consorts, one man and three women near constantly in his orbit.  The others are a little wary of him, jealous of the scraps of affection his savior tosses him—more firmly than it seems Alexis might wish, they teach him that a pod of sirens is five, sometimes less, never more.    He’s more than sure if not for Alexis’s fondness toward him, they’d have driven him off the moment he woke up like a confused fledgling pushed from the nest, confused and unsteady with its wings.  

For the sake of Alexis, they help teach him everything, how to slip into the ocean and breathe water that tastes of renewal, how to sing to the waves to call up their anger and bring them crashing against the coast.  He stands on the rocks that cut his chest open in the midst of a storm and wonders how he ever got lost in this, how he could slip when it’s now so childishly easy to hold on.  

The first time he feeds, Alexis holds the sailor for him, patient like a mother wildcat with a wounded fawn.  He positions Brian’s shaking hand at the softest part of his throat, just under his chin, presses until Brian’s palm is flat, until he can feel the young man breathe.  

“Right there, do you feel it?  It’s in his breath, but it’s deeper than that.” 

“I…I don’t know if I can—“  It doesn’t even matter that he’s not singing anymore; the sailor is trapped, limp and pliant, gazing dazed at Brian’s eyes.  

“You _can_ and you will; you must.  Come, little one, it isn’t hard.  Focus past the pulse.  It’s not their blood you want; we aren’t animals.”  

He _does_ feel it, thrumming like a pulse, as vital as breath.  Life, like a plucked string humming beneath his fingers.  He never knew it was possible to feel so utterly thirsty for a single ringing note.  Alexis must see the hunger in his eyes, feel it in the air between them.  The sound he makes next to Brian’s air is nothing short of a purr, his teeth skimming light over the shell of Brian’s ear. 

“Go on, Brian.  Kiss him first if it pleases you; this doesn’t need to hurt.”  

The sailor tastes like salt and wine, but his life tastes sweeter. 

Brian hides for days, wanders so far he’s not sure he’ll bother going back until he already has, until he’s nestled in the dark among familiar wet rocks.  His feet are in the water, a starfish poking a single questing arm between his toes.  The shift of sand beneath bare feet gives Alexis away, and Brian drops his chin to rest on his arm before he speaks, refusing to look back.  

“You could’ve done that to me.  Why didn’t you?”  Long fingers pet through his hair.  He doesn’t pull away, doesn’t lean in either.  “No, I mean it; I know you didn’t want me for yourself, not to keep.  Why’d you save me?  What was I to you?”  

“A work of art, and I am first an artist.  You might not be a sculpture of my creation, but I preserve beauty where I can.  You were so beautiful, and such a bold little thing.  You weren’t at all afraid.  And, I had already heard you sing.  You always sang when you cast your nets; you remember.” 

He does.  Brian blinks, his eyelashes so heavy with spray they brush salt against his skin.  “I won’t do it like that again.  If I have to…I can choose myself.”  

“As you wish; I thought he was lovely.” 

He was, and that’s exactly the part that sticks in Brian’s throat.  He was lovely, bright, probably had a family back home who mourn him now without a body to bury.  If he has to take in life to go on living it’s not harmony he wants; it’s discord.  

 

**_who are you now; are you still the same or did you change somehow_ **

****

After five years gone he goes back to a place that isn’t home, looks up from the docks at a house with a carved wooden horse by the back door.  He never had children, but it seems the new tenets do.  So much is different, in the path he walks and in the faces he sees.  Further down the village there is blackened ground, little green shoots growing between stones.  He’s been so long away there’s been fire and rebirth and he witnessed none of it.  Honestly, he’s not as sad as he expected to be.  There is nothing for him in this soil, in wooden beams, not even in the church that hasn’t changed at all.  

He’s not sure where his faith stands these days, but if he believes anything it’s that God sees him as he is, wherever he is.  _Whatever_ he is.  Held up next to that mess, a building he spent so many hours in suddenly seems unnecessary, inconsequential.  

He searches streets he feels no common ground with only to glimpse what he’s come for out on the water.  It’s so fitting he has to laugh, so bright and real he startles himself.  Alexis may make him smile, here and there, but it’s been a long time since he laughed.  

From the distance he can’t see Kevin too well, just enough to make out the length of his body, the lines of his face, the familiar flex of his arms as he draws in a catch.  Vision may fail him, but sound carries well across water—true for everyone, though the melodies of his kind reach even further.  Brian perches on a fence rail, sits tall and sings across the water, crisp and clear.  Every sailor and merchant down on the docks is probably craning their heads, drawn toward a song so sweet it burns in their chest, but Brian doesn’t even look.  It’s only Kevin he sees, and he isn’t disappointed.  

Kevin’s hands slip on the rope, his head whipping up to look and maybe it’s Brian’s imagination, maybe it’s an abundance of hope, but he could swear there’s a touch of recognition, of desperation in his swiftness.  

Brian falls silent, and smiles.  

He sings for Kevin until the new moon, from the docks and the hills and twice beneath his window at night, until he knows Kevin has no doubt exactly what voice he’s hearing.  Kevin prays for his soul to rest; Brian listens only long enough to come to the uncomfortable realization that he’s no longer sorry he isn’t resting.  He can’t be sorry, not with all he’s learned blaring in his head and Kevin just on the other side of a weak wooden wall.  

He tugs open the shutters, climbs through Kevin’s window into a room full of firelight and a man he’d know anywhere who looks at him first with eyes that dance from panic to love to fear.  

“No, you can’t—You were _dead_.  David saw you hit the rocks; the whole boat broke apart.  Nothing left but pieces.”  

Brian keeps his movements slow, non-threatening, hands spread wide.  “I hit the rocks, but I’m not dead.  I would have been dead, but someone was there.”  By the way Kevin’s looking at him, he’s not sure he needs to clarify.  “You remember that night we stayed out late down at the cove?  You remember their voices?”  

“I thought…maybe I was hearing your ghost, maybe they took you and—“  His voice breaks, so full of hurt that Brian’s torn, half wishing he’d come sooner, half thinking he shouldn’t have come at all.  While he’s been learning what it means to be whatever he’s become (fisher of men, demon of the sea, _siren_ ), Kevin’s been here mourning him, day in and day out.  He lives alone, unmarried, unrecovered from a love they never truly dared to claim.  

Brian steps forward, crossing further into the light.  “It’s alright, Kevin; it’s alright.  They picked me up, but they didn’t hurt me.  He just made me stronger, that’s all.”  Well, not _all_ , but Kevin’s frightened and for now, he wants to keep this simple.  He hums a scale, watches the tension slide like rain off Kevin’s shoulders.  “C’mere, look at me.  I’m not that different; it’s just me.”  Kevin doesn’t move, but he doesn’t retreat when Brian steps closer either.  He lets Brian right up against him, only shivers a little when Brian’s arms drape over his shoulders.  

Kevin’s hands come to rest on his hips, tentative and feather light, but Brian moans long and low against the shell of Kevin’s ear like the touch takes him apart.  It’s not so much of a stretch as it seems; not when he’s been waiting for Kevin’s touch half his life.  The weight of something more has hung between them since Brian grew old enough to work the boats with him, since he stopped being the little boy Kevin had so often ignored.  He’d known from the beginning they both felt it, caught a glimpse of it in Kevin’s eyes when he stripped down to dive in the water, when Kevin took his hand to pull him back on the deck.  

They never spoke of it, never did more than kiss one night by the fire, so lost in grief for Kevin’s father they almost gave in.  For ages after Brian wondered what would have happened if they had but now, now he’s got a strange feeling that this is better.  _This_ is how they were meant to begin.  

“I’m dreaming.”  There’s a quiver in Kevin’s voice, his breath puffing uneven against Brian’s neck, along the collar of his open shirt.  “You’re dead, and I’m dreaming, and—“ 

Brian nuzzles into Kevin’s neck, nips over Kevin’s pulse, hums until he can feel the vibration.  Kevin makes a sound so breathless and needy Brian’s hardly sure he heard it, bites down harder and hums lower just to hear it again.  There’s fire under his skin, pleasure so white hot he has to acknowledge that there must be truth in all that Alexis told him—there is a rush to claiming your own that nothing else can reach, not another of their own kind, not prey, _nothing_.  

Brian’s arms tighten around Kevin, eyes squeezing shut as he whispers.  “I’m right here, Kevin.  I’ve come to take you with me.”  He could sing, could step back and choose the words and let his magic find the melody and Kevin would follow him right out the door.  He could, but that’s not how he wants this to start.  

Kevin’s arm slides around his waist, left hand slipping under his shirt as he pulls Brian fiercely close.  “You don’t know how long I wanted…but this _can’t_ —“ 

Brian pushes back, gains just enough distance to look his cousin in the eye.  “Fine, say you’re dreaming.  Say I’m dead, none of this is real.  If it was your choice, if it _was_ real, if you had me here and I said…”  He smiles, catches Kevin’s face in his hands to try and smooth out the early wrinkles at the corners of his eyes made deeper by the sun.  “Come with me, and we can be together.” 

Kevin’s breath hitches, his fingers clenching at Brian’s side.  “Of course I would.  You _know_ I would but—“ 

“Then take me to bed, and don’t argue.  If I’m right we walk out of here tomorrow; if I’m just a dream who’s here to judge you?” 

He knows he’s won when Kevin groans, a defeated sound that doesn’t last long before he’s dipping his head and they’re kissing, hot and fierce, nothing like the stilted mess they’d been the last time they went this far.  Kevin’s all over him, pulling at him and holding him and it’s dizzying, so glorious Brian’s hardly sure _he’s_ not the one dreaming after all. 

Neither of them really care in the slightest about reaching the bed.  They go down right where they are instead, the fire just a little too hot beside them, both slick with sweat before they’re even fully naked.  Brian straddles Kevin’s waist, hunched over to stay in reach of kisses that feel as vital to him now as the sea.  Kevin’s fingers catch on the scar on his chest, tracing and tracing until Brian murmurs that it doesn’t matter, it didn’t hurt.  

And still, when Brian sits up Kevin rises with him, puts his mouth to Brian’s chest.  He’s thorough, his kisses wet and linked by soft laps of his tongue.  It feels better than it has any right to, so passionate Brian’s cock aches, so deliberately intentioned he’s blinking back tears before he knows they’re there.  Through Kevin’s eyes, the wound he’d seal with his kisses is the one that took Brian’s life, a product of his imagination and the jagged rocks he knows too well.  He can’t see it as the symbol of life it is, not yet, but maybe tomorrow he will.  Tomorrow, or ten years from now.  They’ll have time.  

Alexis always told him that when the moment came, he would know what to do, and he does.  Kevin’s buried inside him, so close he’s panting, shaking, clinging to Brian like at any moment he’ll turn to smoke and be brushed away.  Someday, he’ll have to ask Kevin just how many times he’s had a dream like this, how often he’s woken hard with Brian’s name on his lips.  

Brian slides fingers still wet from his own release up Kevin’s chest, through a thatch of dark hair and past his collarbones until it rests against his throat.  He’s gentle, just forceful enough that Kevin tips his head back to bare his throat completely, instinctively willing, perhaps, to let Brian take whatever he needs.  

This time, he won’t be taking anything. 

He feels the difference, like holding a choir in his hands rather than a single bell.  The sensation is almost overwhelming, the feel of a soul so brimming with life he’s not sure he can hold it.  He can see, now, just why Alexis was right because it’s actually easier to let something of himself slip into that stream rather than trying to take it all in.  At first, at least, but then Kevin’s coming, spilling into him with a cry so beautiful it takes his breath, pulls hard on the point of connection between them like an unraveling thread.  It _hurts_ and it lingers and somewhere in the maze of sensation Brian’s half sure he comes again because he can feel  his hips jerk forward against Kevin’s, hear himself whimpering.  

When it stops they’re both trembling, Kevin’s hands stroking up and down along his ribs, Brian’s palm still pressed just beneath Kevin’s chin.  He shifts it slowly, cups Kevin’s cheek and rubs his thumb at the corner of kiss swollen lips until he feels Kevin breathe, quick and sharp.  He looks up at Brian with eyes no longer their old rich green but lighter, wilder, green like the sea.  

“Brian?”  There is fear there still, but the awe is greater, wrapped in love and hope.  

Brian feels like he’s run a hundred miles, weak and shaky and like he’ll need to feed twice before he’s himself again but he’s never done anything this wonderful, this utterly worthwhile in his whole life.  Before, or after.  He smiles so big his cheeks hurt, lets his sore arms give out so he can rest fully against Kevin’s chest, his face burying in tight against Kevin’s neck.  

“Mm.  That’s me.  Say it again.”  

 

**_your words are a symphony, music that sings to me, no I can’t breathe_ **

 

He pulls Howie from the water off the coast of Puerto Rico, and it should end there.  He _means_ it to end there because he came down to the water to swim, not to feed, and this lost sailor is no concern of his.  Pulling him out of the water is a kindness of the sort he’s done he’s done a hundred times, so familiar that at first he’s not sure what’s different, why he hovers over this man’s body on the sand, unwilling to let go.  

He’s no boy but he’s young, tanned dark by the sun, small underneath Brian in a way that’s endearing.  Brian’s not used to being larger than anyone.  His breath is shallow, wheezing, and before he can think better of it Brian’s pressing his hand to the sailor’s chest, using the pull he has over the water to coax the ocean from his lungs.  It trickles from his mouth, a thin line that Brian’s tempted to lap clean.  He shakes himself, wipes it away on the back of his hand instead.  The sailor shifts toward his touch and Brian should leave, _now_ , before he’s awake.  It might be easier if he could bring himself to look away. 

Brian cups his cheek in his palm, brushes sand from beneath his eyes and sings low and soft.  He tells himself he’ll ease his pain and leave but there’s something in him that already knows different, that isn’t at all surprised when his sailor comes awake with a gasp and the first thing he does is turn his head to catch Brian’s mouth in a kiss.  

Brian kisses back with fervor until one blurs into five, six, until the body beneath him is arching up and there is lilting Spanish breathed against his lips, fed to him like honey.  Brian groans, shifts his elbows deeper into the sand until his weight settles over his charge.  He’s bare from the waist up and even the sun on his shoulders isn’t as hot as the hands scrabbling at the small of his back, pulling him closer, never pushing him away.  

For years after, Brian’s unable to give an answer he’s pleased with for why he doesn’t stop, though he tries—he was too tempting to resist, his grasping hands too reminiscent of Brian’s own rebirth.  He says as much over and over, tells Kevin it was the first truly selfish thing he’s done in the last century or so, tells himself it was arrogant and he can’t let himself make such a choice for anyone else ever again, no matter what _he_ wants.  

He wonders, occasionally agonizes over it when Howie is asleep between him and Kevin, looking so deceptively small and fragile Brian can’t help but feel he’s done a terrible thing, stolen a life that wasn’t his to take.  Without him, Howie could have gone on to live a good life there on the island, long and natural.  He’s kind, gentle, the sort of man who’d have been an excellent father if he’d been given the chance. 

It’s around that point in his musings that Kevin usually leans over and kisses him, slow and deliberate, his whisper soft when he’s finished so Howie won’t wake.  “He’s happy, Brian.  He loves us.  You saved his life.  Go to sleep.”  

He never imagines that Howie has unanswered questions of his own, not for years and years.  They’re in New Orleans in the summer of 1943, in a French Quarter room so hot the fan overhead can barely stir the heavy air.  Kevin’s out hunting and the two of them are sprawled across a bed stripped down to a single sheet over the mattress, Howie’s chin on Brian’s stomach as he reads.  Brian’s dozing when he realizes Howie’s started to read out loud, quoting something at him he didn’t catch.  

“Hmm?” 

“It’s just this line here, reminds me of us.”  With his face hidden behind the spine of the book Brian can’t see him, just that his hand moves to trail over the page, underlining words as if Brian’s watching over his shoulder.  “ ‘You become responsible, forever, for what you have tamed.’  I don’t know, it just makes me think about where we started, you pulling me out of the water and bringing me home with you and—“ 

“I’m not sure anybody’d say I tamed you.  Probably the opposite, if anything.”  There’s sleepy humor in his voice, his attention still only half roused.  

“Maybe not, but you…you felt responsible for me, you took me with you and—“ 

Brain snatches the book, holds it up high enough for him to see Howie’s face.  “I didn’t take you with me cause I felt responsible.”  There’s such honest confusion in Howie’s eyes his stomach plummets, the book slipping from limp fingers to bounce against the mattress.  “Howie, I didn’t.  That’s not really what you’ve thought all these years?”  He has to ask, even if the answer’s already right there in the wrinkles in Howie’s forehead, the disbelief painted clear in his eyes.  They’re beautifully striking in their contrast to the tone of his skin, a Caribbean turquoise so crystal sharp Kevin always says he could lead anyone to their death without ever singing a note.  

Howie swallows, shrugs like he’s said nothing at all of importance.  “I didn’t mind; I know how you feel about me now but in the beginning it wasn’t like when you went to Kevin, it was—“ 

“No, you’re right, it wasn’t like that at all.”  He slips his fingers behind Howie’s biceps, tugs so forcefully that Howie makes a soft sound of surprise as he acquiesces, sliding up Brian’s body until they’re face to face.  Looking up at Howie, the answer rolls off his tongue so easy it seems absurd that he’s spent so much time looking for it.  “I couldn’t leave you.  Soon as I saw you; I knew I couldn’t…it’s hard to explain.  Like I recognized you and didn’t know it.” More forceful than recognition—bone deep resonance, a soul in harmony with his own.  He’s not sure he can put it to words, but he _feels_ it; he knows.  He strokes his fingers through Howie’s hair, guides him closer for a kiss Howie hums into.  “Felt it the minute I pulled you from the water.  You were mine.”   

Howie shivers, his eyes gone so wide and dark they look pleading, desperate to believe.  Taking Howie might not have been selfish, but he’s _been_ selfish, no doubt.  There’s so much time he’s wasted hauling his own motives up for review; he never stopped to question what Howie might be doing with less to go on.  He’s looked at Howie as a prize so precious he can’t believe he dared to take it, and Howie, he sees…what, exactly?  A liability who became a lover?  A pet he and Kevin decided to keep?  

Brian flips them over lightning quick, a low growl rumbling in his chest as he mouths his way across the curve of Howie’s bare shoulder.  He bites down at the juncture of his neck, sharp and hard, sucking firm when Howie whines and clings to him.  There’s a gratifying sting to the drag of his hands up Brian’s spine, leaving lines he knows will make Howie blush when he sees them.  They’ll be light, quick to fade but he’ll wear them proudly for as long as he can.  

The claim _he’s_ staking isn’t so transitory.  By the time he’s finished he’s left a bruise so tender Howie squirms when he laps at it, his hands still pulling Brian closer, head tilting back to offer up as much skin as he wants to take.  The lines from his teeth are so pronounced it has to hurt, and there’s a quick flash of guilt in Brian’s stomach that’s gone before it can take root.  Howie’s rock hard against his hip, one leg already wrapping around Brian’s waist to keep him in place.  Sometimes, a little pain is grounding.  

Brian takes him like he did the first time on the beach, quick and rough, pants shoved just far enough down and open for their cocks to rut against each other.  Brian’s kisses are near constant, deep and filthy when they land on Howie’s mouth, wet and teasing when he trails them along the line of his jaw, across his cheeks, over fluttering eyelids.  When Howie’s hand slides low on Brian’s hip to try and push the tempo faster Brain catches it, slips his fingers through Howie’s and pins his hand to the bed.  The pressure he tests Brian’s strength with is light, curious rather than serious.  

When he feels Brian’s grip hold Howie cries out, comes so hard Brian feels his whole body shake.  The windows are open to fight the oppressive heat, and there’s a curl of smug satisfaction in Brian’s chest as he wonders how it sounds to those down in the street, what the call of a siren so utterly given over to pleasure must do to human ears.  They must all want him now, every man and woman within reach, even the men who’ve never looked twice at another man in their lives.  Until the effects fade they’ll ache for him, out of sight and absolutely out of reach.  They _should_ want him; he’s beautiful, captivating, and he’s theirs, Brian’s and Kevin’s both.  He’s always been theirs.  

When Kevin comes back to them it’s almost dawn, pink light bathing them both where they lay still naked, still tangled up in each other.  Kevin’s all energy, still riding the high of feeding well when he leans down to greet Brian with a kiss.  He smells like perfume and sweat, tastes like cheap whiskey but he’s Kevin and Brian’s missed him; the details are irrelevant.    

He’s just about to kiss Howie when he sees the mark on his neck, pauses to tilt his chin up a little higher to give himself a better look.  Howie blushes, Brian laughs, and Kevin shifts his grip, tipping Howie’s chin left to present himself with the right side of his neck, a blank canvas.  He lowers his mouth to Howie’s skin without a word and Brian watches with half lidded eyes the way his throat works as he sucks, listens as Howie’s breath turns heavy first before he starts to moan.  

Brian’s hand catches on Kevin’s shirt, fists into it so tight the fabric strains against his knuckles.  It’s been centuries since they started, years past his count, but he’s never felt as immortal, as wholly unstoppable as he does right now.  

 

**_there you are, wild and free, reaching out like you needed me_ **

 

He meets Leighanne Littrell near the end of the second World War, in a hospital in Atlanta.  She’s a nurse, so overworked he’s amazed she can keep moving but she has a smile for every patient, squeezes every hand that reaches for hers.  He watches enthralled, so distracted that when she actually comes up to speak to him about the homeless girl he’s carrying in his arms he’s taken by surprise.  He stays while she gets the girl settled in, stays longer for the sake of watching her, long enough that she lets him buy her coffee when she leaves.  

He walks her home to an apartment building she leaves him standing outside of, and he leans against a streetlight to catch his breath.  She is enchanting, strong and funny and gentle, but there’s a pit in his stomach he can’t explain.  He’s drawn to her, yes, but not in a way that’s familiar, not in a pattern he knows.  Within the span of five minutes he tells himself he’ll never have her, shakes it off and determines that he will.  

Both and neither are true.  

They stay in Atlanta all winter, and he falls in love with Leighanne the way men love wildflowers and thunder, the flight of eagles, the twists and turns of a wide old river.  He can’t help but feel she’s the opposite of all that he is, made for the giving of natural life rather than a devourer of it.  She is warmth and light, an angel to her patients, a mother to a son whose father she never speaks of.  He sings to her from the streets at night, from her couch on lazy afternoons with his head in her lap, her fingers in his hair.    

He tells Kevin again and again how he knows, he _knows_ she isn’t his to take.  Kevin tells him he won’t know unless he asks her, can’t be sure until he gives her the choice.  He says he will, swears he’s working up to it, but it’s a lie and they both know it.  Kevin may not see the reasons, exactly, but Brian has a list.  She has a child, a good life she loves, and even if she didn’t, she wouldn’t, _shouldn’t_ say yes.  She isn’t the type to want to live forever, not this way.  

In April he resolves that he and his boys should leave for Savannah, go back to the sea that calls to them so he can wash Atlanta from his skin.  He doesn’t meant to tell her he’s leaving, doesn’t mean to let it lead to her taking him into her bed.  Even as he’s kissing her he can’t help but laugh at the irony, the urge to tell her she’s done it backwards, seduced a siren into human hands.  He bites his tongue, and kisses her again.  

He holds her soul in his hand, feels it flutter between his fingers like a hummingbird, and lets it go.  He should be proud, relieved that he’s strong enough not to bind her to a life he knows she would never want.  He _should_ be, but she’s warm and soft in the crook of his arm and all he feels at first is a bitter taste on his tongue.  It seems a hollow victory.  

Her fingers trace the scar on his chest so differently from Kevin, light and curious.  “What happened to you?” 

What _hasn’t_?  He shakes his head, kisses her hair.  “Nothing too bad; just a wreck I was in as a kid.”  She’ll think cars, and he’ll let her.  More plausible these days.  

“It feels like it went deep.  Right over your heart.  It’s a miracle you made it.”  His laugh is short and quick, hard enough that she shoves lightly at his chest.  “What, you don’t believe in those?” 

“No, no I used to.  I really did.”  

“Well what stopped you?”  

He could play it off, make up anything or change the subject, but the act of letting her go has left him oddly emotionally drained.  It must have, if the prospect of lying seems more difficult than the truth.  “Something happened to me that…I don’t know.  I guess more than anything I really hoped God wasn’t watching me anymore, if He ever was.”  

“You’re still here.  Seems to me He’s watching you closer than you think.”  

On the road to Savannah Kevin hovers around him like he can’t break a radius of six feet, brings Brian coffee and stunned prey gleaned out of roadside bars and anything else he thinks Brian could possibly need.  They’re 180 miles out when he finally asks the question Brian knows has been burning a hole in his tongue since they left— 

“I know you’re doing what you think is right, and we’ll back you on that.  We always will, but what _I_ want to know is if you’ve given any thought at all to how this ends?” 

Brian blinks, waits so long he thinks Kevin might give up and retreat.  He doesn’t.  A good few minutes later, Brian forces his mouth open, his jaw sore from how tight he’s had it clenched.  “Yeah, don’t worry.  I think I know how this ends.”  

In broad strokes, maybe, but the devil is always in the details.  He sees her again in ’55, again in ’63.  He tries to explain himself to her then, tell her why he’s never aged a day.  She won’t hear a word of it, just covers his mouth with her fingers and calls him her angel.  He’s been called a demon so often, it feels good to let her.  

In 1979 he tracks her down to a hospital room in Atlanta, waits in the hall while a nurse bustles around her bed straightening blankets and shifting monitors.  She’s silver haired and beautiful, disorientingly older than he feels she should be, still too young to die.  Her eyes light up when she sees him the way they always have and she sits up, reaches out to squeeze the hand of her young nurse as she smiles, says his name with all the jubilance of a child. 

He clears his throat, shakes himself and stands tall.  “Hey, Leigh.” 

The nurse’s smile is polite, thin, mildly curious.  “It’s good to see she has a visitor; are you a friend of her son’s?” 

“More of an old family friend than a friend of Baylee’s, ma’am, but I’ve known him a long time.” 

“Oh he’s better than a friend, Tracy; he’s my angel and he’s come to sing for me, isn’t that right, Brian?” 

When Tracy leaves and it’s just the two of them he shuts the door, sits on the edge of the bed and holds her hand.  She’s in pain at first; he can feel it in her grip, see it in her eyes.  He numbs the aches medicine can’t touch with his music, sings for her until nothing hurts and she’s strong enough to reach out and seek a kiss he’d never refuse.  

He sings her to sleep, leaves knowing he’ll never see her again.  She dies in September, on a Wednesday.  The anticipation doesn’t lessen the blow, not even a little.  Howie holds him as he cries and Kevin folds around them both, rubs his back and does a poor job of hiding the fearful anger in his eyes.  Brian’s not sure he deserves the sympathy of either one of them—this pain is one he brought entirely on himself.  

 

**_I know I promised you forever; is there no stronger word I can use_ **

****

The first time he sees AJ, AJ’s already been watching him for a solid five minutes at least.  He’s on the ground in a San Francisco alley, blood on his mouth, arms hanging limp and tired where they’re draped across his knees.  He’s drunk as hell, likely drugged given the company they’d found him in, but his focus when he looks up from the body between them to find Brian’s face is impressive. 

“Holy _shit_ …” 

Kevin steps up behind him, his hand at the small of Brian’s back.  “It’s not safe here; we gotta go.”  He’s not wrong; there’s _nothing_ safe about where they are.  Most of the time they lure prey farther from the source, take them to abandoned buildings or down by quiet waterfronts.  They’ve left bodies in cars and hotel rooms, more places than he could ever count but to take a life not a block past the club where they first caught onto him is sloppy, wildly dangerous.  They’d marked this jackass as one to follow, expecting an easy hunt.  When they caught up to him they’d found him with the kid already pinned to the brick, fighting a battle he was in no condition to win.  This time, they just didn’t have a choice. 

“I mean holy _shit_ did you just…I mean you didn’t snap his neck I’d have _heard_ you snap his neck, _can_ you even snap somebody’s neck from that angle?  But he just dropped like, like some fucking telepathic shit or…”  The guy on the ground coughs, tries to wipe blood from the corner of his mouth with a shaking palm.  He misses, smears it across his wrist instead.  He’s dazed, fucking wasted and laughing under his breath, but it’s that flash of red against pale skin Brian catches on, the twitch of fingers still trembling.  Even the fear in his eyes looks defiant, and Brian hasn’t hurt this much in what feels like a long, long time.  

“We can’t leave him like this.”  His whisper goes unanswered but for the addition of Kevin’s other hand at his waist, fingers hooking through a loop on his belt.  “Kevin, we _can’t_.” 

He’s not sure what’s worse—the moment of indecision where he isn’t sure Kevin’s feeling what he’s feeling off this battered kid, or the moment Kevin stoops to gather his unprotesting frame up in his arms and Brian’s certain that he is.  It’s a lot harder to pretend he’s overreacting when he sees the flicker of confusion in Kevin’s face, the way he hesitates ever so slightly before cradling him higher and closer than he needs to.  

Brian looks away, tries valiantly to distract himself by getting them the hell out of there, but he can hear Kevin behind him, talking to the boy low and soft the way he did to Howie the morning Brian brought him home.  

“Hey, you’re alright.  We’re not gonna hurt you; you’re alright.”  

 _He_ may not get hurt, but Brian’s not at all sure about the rest of them.  

AJ wakes up in their apartment the following afternoon with a headache, a craving for toast and bacon, and bizarrely boundless enthusiasm for someone who has to be feeling pretty heavily like shit.  Contrary to what Howie insisted the night before after they explained the situation, he has not, in fact, forgotten the manner of their intervention.  On the contrary, it’s all he wants to talk about.  

“ _Seriously_ , you can tell me, I’m not gonna freak, okay?  You guys fuckin’ saved my ass out there; I don’t care if you’re mutants.  …wait, _are_ you mutants?” 

If he didn’t know Kevin half as well as he does, Brian probably wouldn’t be able to see how hard he’s fighting not to laugh.  He pushes the plate of bacon closer until it nudges their mysterious stranger’s arm.  “Would you stop worrying about it and eat your bacon?” 

“I was rescued by the gay Fantastic Four and you want me to focus on _bacon_?” 

Brian’s been doing his damn best not to be charmed, he _really_ has, but that’s just too much.  He loses it, laughs so hard he has to lean into Howie’s shoulder to keep from falling off his stool.  Even Howie’s chuckling, holding up three fingers and exchanging smiles with the kid like they’ve irritated Kevin over breakfast together a hundred times.  

Kevin’s less amused, or at least he pretends to be.  “I’m pretty sure that bastard drugged you; you need to get some protein in your stomach.”  

“Is he always such a dad?”  

“Oh you have no idea.”  Howie says it with a grin, reaches out to snag a piece of bacon for himself though it earns him a shove at his wrist from Kevin.  He just shifts hands, dusts his fingers off on a napkin and holds his free hand out across the island.  “I’m Howie.” 

“AJ.”  

It’s been so long since Brian fell in love with Howie that he’s almost forgotten how overwhelming it was, how irresistible.  He loved Leighanne, he always will, but Howie and Kevin consumed him.  He’d started to think it’d never happen again, that there’d be three of them till the end of time, but every time he looks over at AJ he feels that theory crumbling apart beneath his grasp, remembers what Alexis told him so long ago—with rare exception, a pod of sirens is made of five.    

After making a kill in such a public place they know they shouldn’t go back to the area, should change neighborhoods if not cities but none of them say it.  None of them move to practice it, either, because though Brian means to look on his own time they all end up searching the same types of bars, haunting anywhere AJ might be.  Kevin finds him again four days later, brings him home only slightly tipsy and keeps him up talking and laughing and playing around until he passes out exhausted on the floor right next to the couch.  Brian only catches the end of it but he finds himself too entranced to interrupt; he can’t remember the last time Kevin looked quite so young.  

Brian watches from the kitchen long after the two of them go silent, lights out, stock still and quiet out of a respect for a moment he’s unwilling to intrude on.  Kevin’s hand rests against AJ’s stomach like it’s there to feel him breathe, his left twined up loosely with AJ’s where it rests against Kevin’s thigh.  His head’s bowed like he’s thinking, maybe even praying and it all feels so utterly self-contained Brian starts when Kevin speaks loud enough to carry.  

“He’s livin’ in a car.  He says nothing ‘too bad’s ever happened, that he’s been roughed up a little before but I don’t know if he’s telling me what he knows I want to hear, if…”  He clears his throat.  Brian’s stomach turns, a sharp twist.  “He’s only 23.  Came out here to play music.  He’s got a voice you wouldn’t believe.”  

“I’d like to hear it.”  

“I know…you’ve always been the one in control here and that’s fine; that’s how it should be.” 

“Kevin—“ 

“Just let me get this out.”  Brian nods unnecessarily toward the back of Kevin’s head and waits.  “I think we all know where this is going, and I think—I _know_ eventually you’d bring him as one of us yourself, but if it’s alright with you I’d like to decide on this one.  Let me talk to him, let me wait until I know he’s sure.  What happened with Howie, that was on you.  Let this one be on me.” 

It’s on the tip of his tongue to agree without a second’s hesitation, but at the last split second it seems better to go to him instead.  He pads barefoot across the carpet to where Kevin sits cross legged at AJ’s side, kneels down to wrap his arms around Kevin’s chest and kiss the side of his neck.  

“You know when we do bring him in, you can do that part yourself too.”  

Kevin shakes his head, though the hitch in his breath gives him away.  “No, you should—I wouldn’t know what in the hell I was doing.”  

“I didn’t either that first time, but it’s all instinct.  I can talk you through it.” 

“Are you tellin’ me I was your test subject?”  

Brian muffles his laugh against Kevin’s shoulder, kisses him through the thin cotton of his shirt.  “You make it sounds so bad; I just meant—“ 

“I thought you’d practiced, maybe—“ 

“That’s somethin’ you wanted me to have _practiced_?”  AJ stirs and Kevin jabs an elbow at Brian’s ribs, shushes him again when Brian slips in a last quiet _you know I love you_ against the collar of his shirt.  Kevin’s smiling and there’s really nothing Brian needs to explain; he _knows_ that, but there’s a last nagging thought that itches under skin for long minutes until he can’t ignore it anymore.  He rests his chin on Kevin’s shoulder, whispers so soft he hardly hears himself.  “I didn’t want to try it first.  You were the first person I’d ever met that I knew I’d want around for the rest of my life.”  

Kevin turns to kiss him, chaste though the brush of his beard leaves Brian’s nerves tingling.  “And now?” 

“Now I’ve got a lot more to lose.”  

More than he yet knows because whatever he feels then, he doesn’t really know Alexander James McLean yet.  Over the next six months he learns, finds himself drawn in so deep it’s strange to think that he’s never missed this man before.  Kevin coaxes him to move in a little over a month after that second time he let them take him home and he fills the apartment with color, concert posters and playbills and the bright red paint he coats the kitchen table in.  He plays the guitar Howie gives him with irrepressible enthusiasm, sings in the shower and on the balcony, hums tunes they’ve never heard sometimes while working in a notebook he lets none of them read.  

The first time he ends up in Brian’s bed he’s already been sleeping with Kevin here and there for close to three weeks, but any jealousy he might have felt evaporates with AJ nestled close, looking up at him with adoration Brian knows he doesn’t deserve.  Rather than the scar it’s the tattoo on Brian’s shoulder his fingers find first, playing up and down the cross like strings.  Brian strokes his palm across AJ’s own, amused by the symmetry, two crosses in what would be mirror image if they hadn’t been drawn so differently.  It’s fitting, AJ’s intricacy next to his simple image of wood and stone.  

He swore this choice would be up to Kevin and he meant it, he’ll hold to it, but his heart’s beating so damn fast in his chest he can’t bite _everything_ back.  

“Tell me you’ll stay with us.”  

The corners of AJ’s lips twitch into a half smile, his eyes bright with hope.  “Hell yeah; long as I can.” 

“That’s forever.”  He doesn’t give him a chance to answer, doesn’t try and explain because if he did he might break his word to Kevin.  Kevin would forgive him, but he’s not so sure he’d forgive himself.  Brian leans over and kisses him hard, keeps it up until AJ’s thoroughly distracted, more interested in pulling Brian back on top of him than taking his millionth shot at figuring out what in the hell they are. 

When it finally happens, they’re all together.  Brian’s holds AJ in his arms, thighs spread to either side of Brian’s lap to give Howie better access.  Kevin takes so long kissing his way up AJ’s chest that Brian almost wonders if he’s lost his nerve, but when their eyes meet he sees in a fire in Kevin’s he’s never seen before.  AJ whines and arches toward him and Kevin welcomes him, kneads with a firm hand at the side of his neck as he pulls AJ in for a kiss.  

He’s ready, they’re _all_ ready, but there’s immeasurable tenderness in the words Kevin speaks against the corner of his mouth as they break apart.  “I’m not gonna hurt you, alright?  I promise; I’m not gonna hurt you.”  

“I know.”  There’s no hesitation; no waver of indecision.  AJ tips his head back against Brian’s shoulder, baring his throat.  “Just do it.”  

 

**_every time I breathe I take you in, and my heart beats again_ **

**** ****

For Brian, everything about Nick is different, right from the start.  

It’s been a long time since they’ve been in Florida and he’s missed land like this, the primal feel of the swamp, what it’s like to be surrounded by water that feels so precious and old.  He’s nestled on a log with his back to a living cypress, legs dangling in the water, singing for the pure joy of it.  He’s out so far it doesn’t occur to him he’ll have company until he hears running feet on wooden planks, the uneven beat of four versus two.  

He shuts up quick, cracks his eyes open to see a boy with tattered basketball shorts and a shirt three sizes too big standing with one hand on the shoulder of a Doberman.  He can’t be more than thirteen, too young to have been drawn by his song out of anything more than fascination.  There’s something arresting about him Brian can’t place, unfamiliar because of course, of _course_ it doesn’t feel the same as the others did.  He’s too young; it’ll be years yet before he sees Nick for what he is but just then, at that first moment in the swamp, he knows none of it.  There’s only a boy looking at him with curiosity and a panting dog and this strange feeling Brian’s never experienced that makes him want to stay.  

He raises one hand in a wave and that’s all the invitation Nick needs to sprawl on the dock and call to him across the water.  “Hey, you shouldn’t have your legs in the water like that.  You know there’s gators out here, right?”  

There are, and none of them will give him any trouble.  Wild things know a predator when they see one; it’s only humans who’ve so thoroughly lost their common sense.  He feels reckless, like showing off for this kid even though he shouldn’t.  Kevin’s said it over and over, how important it is they act normal in public, how they can’t afford to breathe water on a public beach and get caught on tape.  It’s a thin excuse, but there’s no tape running here, so he smiles and flips down into the water, swims so smooth beneath the surface there won’t be a ripple before he surfaces right at the dock.  

He breaks the surface in a shower of water, hauling himself onto the dock in one smooth move that leaves Nick babbling so excitedly Brian can hardly keep up.  In the span of the next few hours he learns all about what brings Nick out to the trail, how bad his neighborhood sucks, how he’s got no friends to play basketball with, how he likes to swim but he loves to sing and dance.  He learns the dog’s name halfway through ( _Sabbath, like Black Sabbath, cause he’s a black dog.  My dad named him; he thought it was funny.)_ , but it’s not until they’re about to go their separate ways that he learns that this boy is Nick Carter.  He swears up and down that someday, it’ll be a name people know.  

Brian laughs, ruffles his hair and tells him he’s one person down already.  

It’s a single afternoon hanging out with a kid, but he leaves feeling like he’s found something.  

He doesn’t go back right away, but they’ve come to Tampa intending to stay for quite awhile and eventually he talks himself into it.  After all, Nick is lonely and Brian’s never played basketball.  If he doesn’t pick up a new hobby every hundred years or so, life can get pretty damn monotonous.  He’s pleased to find that for a short guy, he’s actually not that bad, even when he purposefully downplays his strength as much as he can to make it fair.  

Nick is the little brother he never had, his partner in crime, a constant source of light and laughter.  It’s nothing he ever expected, but he never, ever wants to let it go.  Still, there’s a nagging whisper of something that’s probably self-preservation at the back of his mind that tells him not to get too close, stay too long, so he always comes and goes, ends up staying away for all of Nick’s fifteenth year because he and the boys spend that one down in Miami.  

Nick’s seventeen when Brian feels something shift, so startlingly new it’d have knocked him off his feet if he wasn’t already there.  It’s summer, blistering hot and they’ve spent so many hours on the court Brian feels almost ready to kill to get some cool water on his skin.  He lays back against the asphalt, groans in mock pain when Nick bounces the ball off his chest.  

“You gonna just lay there, old man?  Thought you wanted to try and beat me today.”  

“I already beat you.  Twice.” 

“You cheated.” 

“Oh _whatever_ ;  you—“  Nick’s elbow digs into his ribs, half his weight suddenly draped across Brian’s chest.  “ _Ow_.  Hey, you.”  

“It’s hot.”  Absurdly hot, hotter now that he’s got a warm body pressed against his side.  

Brian swallows.  “Yeah, I know.  I was thinkin’ we should go for a swim.”  

“Orrr, we play another game and you lose because you’re _old_ , and you get us ice cream.  Sounds better, right?”  

Brian moves to shove at Nick’s shoulder, lets go quick when his palm seems to burn.  “I’m not _that_ old you know.”  Well, he _is_ , but right now he doesn’t feel it.  With Nick, he never does.  

“Oh please, what are you, like 25?” 

Hundred, maybe.  He’s no longer sure; he stopped counting a long time ago.  He only knows how he feels, ancient more often than not but these last few years…there’s no way around it, Nick makes him feel young, feel different, and for so long it was something all its own but now Nick’s half laying on him like he’s done half a hundred times and there’s something terrifying familiar about the way it makes his throat go tight.  

That night, Brian convinces them to leave Tampa for Charleston.  He’s not sure what his plan is exactly, if he means to get distance to make himself forget what he realized out on the court or if he’s trying to wean himself off Nick entirely.  His exact motivations are a fucking maze; all he knows is that he has to go.  

He passes the next month in a mood so dark it affects all of them, and though he keeps expecting it to fade he only ever feels worse, not better.  A month turns into six, thirteen, twenty.  He’s so screwed up he fucks one of his victims before he feeds, only realizes after that it probably matters that he was blonde haired and blue eyed, comfortingly tall.  He’s never actually cheated, not once before this.  He had their blessing with Leighanne long before it happened and anything that happens with prey is only ever minor, kisses and hands slipped only slightly under shirts, past the waist of sliding jeans.  Those moments are meaningless but he can’t say this was, he can’t and he feels sick to his stomach, begs forgiveness and doesn’t expect it.  They aren’t half as mad as he thinks they should be but AJ at least is hurt; Brian can see it in his eyes.  

Kevin just looks at him, takes his chin in his hands so Brian can’t look away and says in a tone that brooks no argument, “This has to stop.”  

He’s tempted to argue that since it’s his first and _only_ mistake of its kind, it’s definitely already stopped.  He’s tempted, but he’s too afraid to tempt Kevin into talking too openly about the source so he keeps his mouth shut.  Later, he overhears them talking, disjointed voices from the other side of a wall.  

“—it’s gonna be Leighanne all over again, he’s gonna wait around until Nick dies and it’s gonna break his heart.” 

“Who’s Leighanne?” 

“This is worse than Leighanne.  We left Atlanta for years at a time and he was always bad at first, but he was never like this.”  

If Kevin was wrong, he might could bring himself to get out of bed and go refute him.  

By the time he sees Nick again, Nick’s 21 and Brian’s spent almost four years trying to convince himself he doesn’t know exactly what this thing between them has the potential to become.  Nick’s still in Tampa, still dancing but he’s going to school for it now, a dual major in dance and music.  He’s moved out of his parents’ house and into an apartment where he scrapes by.  Sabbath is gone, and he doesn’t smile half as much as he used to.  In all the days Brian watches him from a careful distance, he never once sees him pick up a basketball.  

When he finally gives in and lets himself be seen, it’s a little amazing how the look on Nick’s face hurts him more than the last four years combined.  He’s so wounded, so full of righteous fury that even as Brian’s wishing he could melt into the damn pavement just to get away he’s also trying to tell himself that no matter how it feels right now, maybe this is a good thing.  Maybe now they can really let each other go.  In theory, at least, but when Nick turns to walk away he grabs onto him before he can stop himself.  Nick could let go of his hand easy, could pull away and keep walking but he doesn’t, he doesn’t do either, and Brian knows he’s lost.  

The first time they make love, Nick already knows everything.  He knows and he’s ready, he _wants_ it, but Brian’s not quite ready yet.  It’s just the two of them and it’s nothing like his first time with Howie, really nothing like any of the others at all.  He’s gentle, more careful than he needs to be he knows because Nick is a man now, bigger than he is.  He’s not fragile; Brian’s wrestled with him harder more times than he can remember but still he can’t help but hold him with reverence, like Nick is something he isn’t worthy to touch.  

The way Nick nuzzles into his neck as Brian sinks inside him makes his lungs burn, his breath so erratic he doesn’t feel stabilized until Nick kisses him again.  He tries to get himself ready, goes so far as pressing his palm right where it needs to be, but when Nick looks up at him his first thought is that he’s not ready for the shade of blue in those eyes to change.  He pulls back, dips his head to mark Nick’s collarbone while he comes instead.  

When it’s over and Brian rolls off of him Nick sighs dramatically up at the ceiling, closes his eyes for maybe half a minute before he turns to look at Brian, forehead furrowed.  “I don’t feel any different.” 

Brian fights a smile, hooks his arm around Nick’s waist to stave off some of the protest he knows is coming.  “That’s cause I didn’t do it yet.  Trust me when it happens, you’ll know.”  

“I can’t fuckin’ believe you!  You _promised_ , man, you—“ 

“And I’m sorry; I thought I was ready, but I wasn’t.  I just need a little more time.” 

“Time for _what_?  You plan to do it when I’m forty?”  Brian rubs his cheek against Nick’s, hums softly at the slight scratch of stubble, first in pleasure though it slides into a simple melody.  He never _did_ cheat at basketball, but there’s moment he’s not above it.  “Oh, don’t you start that shit; that’s not fair.”  

Brian grins against the hollow of this throat, sings soft and clear, his voice still just a little rough with arousal.  His thigh slips between Nick’s, hips rolling forward ever so slightly to try and tease his cock to rise.  

Nick groans, makes a halfhearted attempt to fight the way his body arches against Brian’s.  “I hate you.  I really do, I hate the way you—“ 

But Brian keeps singing, and he never gets around to what exactly it is he hates.  

They go through with it two months later in Key West, in the heat of the day in a hotel room with open windows.  The boys are there and Kevin keeps his hand on the back of Brian’s neck while he does it, leaves it there to soothe him as he lays there after feeling like he’s given more of himself to Nick than he’s kept in his own chest.  

Nick’s eyes don’t change at all. 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> I marked this as underage because Nick is 17 when Brian realizes his feelings for him(and Brian's known him since he was 12), but nothing happens then. Still, if the idea that it could have upsets anyone you might want to skip this one. 
> 
> Also, the main non-con related scene is an instance of attempted non-con(and it's here the likely presence of date rape drugs is mentioned) and it's very heavily implied but it all takes place before the scene starts so none of it is actually pictured, just some of the aftermath. However, actual not-just-attempted non-con is vaguely referenced later, but the truth is left ambiguous for a reason. 
> 
> Also also, the infidelity is a very brief isolated incident, and it's mentioned rather than shown. I know that's a thing that really bothers some people to the point that they can't read something so I wanted to make sure it was tagged for, but it's a very very small moment that's a symptom of completely separate problem.


End file.
